Observation of Plasma-Induced Damage in Bulk Germanium ${p}$ -Type FinFET Devices and Curing in High-Pressure Anneal

In this letter, evidence of plasma-induced damage (PID) occurring in p-type FinFET Germanium devices due to BEOL processing is reported. The ability of high-pressure anneal (HPA) (20 min at 450° with 20 atm pressure) to cure this damage is investigated by comparing different ambients (hydrogen and deuterium) with the reference case without HPA. The degradation and partial recovery during anneal of the threshold voltage, the transconductance, and the subthreshold slope are observed. Further, bias temperature instability stress is employed to evaluate the impact of PID in terms of reliability. It is found that the damage observed in the dc and reliability measurements is more efficiently cured by the H2 ambient than the D2 ambient.